Howard County Council is considering a proposed pause on certain solar energy projects that would freeze new approvals for a year while officials rewrite the rules governing how solar facilities get built near homes and farmland. The idea, laid out in Council Bill 59-2026 from Councilman David Yungmann, comes after a Woodbine resident said her family was blindsided by a solar project planned near their home with little to no warning.
The council held a work session on the proposal, according to CBS News Baltimore, as western Howard County residents pushed for the moratorium, arguing that large-scale solar projects threaten the rural and agricultural character of their communities. Yungmann introduced the bill to create clearer guidance and procedures after Maryland's Renewable Energy Certainty Act reshaped how solar projects move through local review, as reported by WMAR 2 News.
Kasey Meinecke, a Woodbine resident, said she and her family moved to the area wanting peaceful surroundings after living in cities for more than a decade. Instead, she said she learned about a solar project planned near her home from a posted sign, with no outreach or notice given about the facility slated for farmland behind her house and her neighbor's, per the same account from WMAR 2 News.
What Bill 59-2026 Would Actually Do
If enacted, the bill would bar the county from accepting or finalizing plans for solar facilities producing more than one megawatt of energy for a year, according to WMAR 2 News's reporting on the proposal. The station also described the pause as applying only to projects producing one megawatt or more, while a separate account from the Baltimore Sun characterized the proposed freeze as targeting projects between one and two megawatts specifically. The exact scope of any final moratorium remains unclear.
During the pause, the county's Department of Planning and Zoning would be required to hold a public meeting within 30 days of enactment and produce a report within 120 days, per WMAR 2 News. Yungmann said the moratorium would give planning officials and state lawmakers time to address the Renewable Energy Certainty Act and its impacts, and said his district has been disproportionately affected by solar development.
Under the state law, which became law in 2025, projects generating between one and two megawatts can bypass certain state and county review processes, allowing them to avoid the Public Service Commission's review process altogether. Per the bill's own framing, that has meant some solar projects in Howard County have been approved without the public process, standards, and considerations that once applied.
Officials Warn a Freeze Could Backfire
Not everyone at the county sees the pause as a fix. Tim Lattimer, Howard County's deputy chief of staff, said a moratorium could halt solar projects already in development and create a stigma around solar energy in the county.
Howard County currently has 15 solar projects in various stages of development, most of them under two megawatts, and the county is already generating about 180 megawatts of solar power. That's a fraction of the 437 megawatts called for under the county's Climate Forward plan by 2030, and environmentalists have warned that pausing new projects could put Howard County behind on meeting that goal, according to WMAR 2 News.
Farm owner George Boarman offered a different worry, telling WMAR 2 News that solar leases give farms a consistent source of income and that pausing projects would undercut efforts to keep farms financially sustainable. That tension between land-use worries and farm economics echoes concerns raised statewide, where Maryland Matters has reported that farmers and rural landowners fear thousands of acres of farmland could shift from growing corn, wheat and soybeans to hosting solar arrays. That same outlet noted developers may prefer keeping projects below the Public Service Commission's threshold specifically so they can pursue local approval instead.
How Other Maryland Counties Have Handled It
Howard wouldn't be the first Maryland county to hit pause on solar. Anne Arundel County banned industrial solar operations before enacting its own moratorium on using agricultural land for solar fields, while Frederick County adopted legislation restricting solar-farm siting on farmland that blocked construction of several projects outright, according to The Daily Record. Montgomery County took a different route, adopting a heavily amended bill restricting where solar can be built on farmland rather than a blanket pause.
Frederick County also adopted its own temporary moratorium on solar projects, per the same Daily Record report, part of a broader statewide push tied to Maryland's goal of having at least 14.5 percent of its energy come from solar power by 2030. Carroll County commissioners took similar steps in the past, moving a proposed six-month moratorium on community-solar applications in the county's agricultural zone to a public hearing, according to a notice from Carroll County Government.
The Howard County Council will next have an opportunity to act on Bill 59-2026 at its meeting on October 5, though whether the bill will be amended, passed or voted down remains to be seen.
